Recent Responses
I accept that one does not need a religious belief to be 'moral'. But is there any good reason, in the absence of religious belief, why one should want, need or have to be 'moral' as opposed to being immoral? In case this should lead to a debate about the meaning of the word 'moral' or a diversion into the law, neither of which are behind my question, may I arbitrarily focus on morality being confined to the single simple example of not stealing and that the being (or the fear of being) caught be ignored.
Matthew Silverstein
February 1, 2008
(changed February 1, 2008)
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Click here for my response to a similar question.
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Is religion based around God or can people have a religion without believing in God?
Allen Stairs
December 27, 2007
(changed December 27, 2007)
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Religion seems to be what is sometimes called a "family resemblance" concept. If we try to tie it up in a neat definition that draws sharp lines between religions and non-religions, we're likely to fail. Instead, what we find is that there are various things we refer to as religions that r... Read more
Are there any interesting arguments for the existence of God from the existence of beauty? i.e., because there is beauty, we know there is God?
Richard Heck
December 24, 2007
(changed December 24, 2007)
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My understanding is that Kant argued in something like this fashion. Or, at least, that Kant thought that it was through the contemplation of beauty that we could experience the divine. I don't myself see that any sort of real argument will be forthcoming along these lines, but I do unders... Read more
If my mum hadn't got pregnant with me and I'd never been born, would I be someone else? Sorry that isn't very well phrased, I hope you understand what I mean.
Richard Heck
December 24, 2007
(changed December 24, 2007)
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I think most philosophers nowadays would say, no: If your mother had never gotten pregnant, then you simply would not have existed. It's not a pleasant thought, at least not for you, but there you have it.
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There is a lot of evidence that reincarnation is a fact, yet the proposition and evidence are ignored or rejected by western society. What evidence would have to be presented for it to be accepted?
Richard Heck
December 24, 2007
(changed December 24, 2007)
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I can well imagine that there could be such evidence. But for the evidence to be truly trustworthy, it would have to be collected by people who were neutral, more or less, on what it was supposed to demonstrate, and the evidence would have to be in some sense replicable, and to stand up to... Read more
Consider a first-order axiomization of ZFC. The quantifiers range over all the sets. However, we can prove that (in ZFC) there is no set which contains all sets. Soooo.........how can we make a _model_ for ZFC? The first thing you do when you make a model for a set of axioms is specify a domain, which is a set of things which the quantifiers range over......this seems to be exactly what you can't do with ZFC. So what am I missing?
Richard Heck
December 24, 2007
(changed December 24, 2007)
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This kind of concern has had a good deal of influence on research in logic over the last several decades. It was, for example, a major force behind Boolos's work on plural quantification.
More recently, there has been an explosion of research on what is called "absolutely universal" quanti... Read more
The Times reports that Martin Tankleff was just granted a second trial after spending 17 years in prison for a crime that he very likely didn't commit. If he's found not guilty, or, more to the point, if he's in fact not guilty, why doesn't he have the right to commit 17 years' worth of crimes "free of charge"? OK, maybe not 17 full years' worth, but you'd admit, I hope, that at least some of the jurisprudence of punishment is based on retribution, so can you discuss the role of his time served in future punishment deliberations? For instance, say he happens to commit a crime later in life, not out of some sense of entitlement, but for any of the other "normal" reasons (like passion!): how relevant should his time served be?
Allen Stairs
December 24, 2007
(changed December 24, 2007)
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My impulse is to say that we're mixing apples and eggnog. It's true that retribution is part of the way we thinkabout punishment. But however we understand retribution, it's hard tosee how the State's wrong against you would make it okay for you to robme or beat me up. After all, even thou... Read more
Is there a difference of aesthetic value between a genuine piece of art and an indistinguishable fake of it? Erez B., Israel
Alexander George
December 21, 2007
(changed December 21, 2007)
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Sell also Question 406.
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When parents take measures to select for beneficial genetic traits in their children (e.g., by selecting MENSA members as sperm donors), who benefits? I take it that the intuition is that the children benefit. There's something weird about this idea, however. It's not as though we are conferring intelligence or good looks on a child who would otherwise be ordinary; rather, we're trying to ensure that the ordinary child never comes into existence in the first place.
Mitch Green
December 20, 2007
(changed December 20, 2007)
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Your last sentence is right: It's not true that in the case you have in mind the parents confer a benefit on child that would otherwise lack it. You're right also that it is a bit strange to suppose that children benefit from this. On the other hand, one might argue that this practice ben... Read more
Is there a difference of aesthetic value between a genuine piece of art and an indistinguishable fake of it? Erez B., Israel
Alexander George
December 21, 2007
(changed December 21, 2007)
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Sell also Question 406.
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